Intense Ibsen Play Strikes Timely Chord

For anyone with gripes about their family drama, allow "" to put it in perspective.

Irish writer Frank McGuiness’s new version of Henrik Ibsen’s late-19th century play at revolves around the deep selfishness of its characters, consumed as they are with controlling each other to assuage deep bitterness or restore a sense of meaning to wrecked, empty lives. The play, directed by James Macdonald, premiered last October at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and continues its run at BAM through Feb. 6.

Alan Rickman plays the title character, a formerly wealthy banker whose embezzlement schemes landed him in prison and blackened the family name. Although he returned home eight years before the start of the play, during that time he has lived in self-imposed incarceration upstairs, pacing his study while his wife Gunhild (Fiona Shaw) bemoans the family shame in the drawing room below. Their son, Erhart (Marty Rea), is so desperate for escape that he easily falls prey to a wily divorcee, Fanny Wilton (Cathy Belton).

Compounding this misery, Gunhild’s sister Ella (Lindsay Duncan) arrives after a long estrangement to claim her rights -- to Borkman, Borkman junior and the Borkman estate -- thus opening the can of worms that weave the rotten fabric of the play.

Certainly, Ibsen’s drama is no picnic. But the misanthropy is so extreme that, at times, dark moments become comical. Borkman, talking with the one man who continues to visit him, is irritated that his friend, a playwright, won’t reassure him that one day he will return to power. In retaliation, he derides the man’s writing, to make a point: “That’s what friends are for,” he says, “to lie to one another.” Human relationships in the play are so bleak and grasping, the characters so hyperbolically negative, that moments like this can seem ridiculous. And yet, they also force us to examine the truth of our deepest motivations.

In a key scene, Erhart’s parents and aunt vie openly to claim him as their own. Gunhild’s urgency, perhaps the most forceful, stems from her total investment in her child, as the one being who can give her life meaning and restore her sense of pride. John Gabriel sees in his son a chance to regain the power he lost by joining forces in business (“Work is life,” he says.) Ella, close to death and the last of her line, hopes Erhart will become her legacy by taking her name.

Erhart is pulled, literally as well as emotionally, in so many directions that the scene becomes farcical. His desire to live for happiness instead of the will of others is sound but his judgement is misguided, as what he has found in Fanny is less true love than desperate escapism.

It’s easy to see why actors love Ibsen: plenty of intense emotional meat to sink their teeth into, and this cast of classically trained English heavyweights has the requisite chops. The headliners serve up well seasoned performances, with Rickman full of snarling self-justification and Duncan draping her hauteur with a veil of deceptive softness.

Shaw’s performance is perhaps the most arresting, though. She somehow elicits a degree of sympathy for Gunhild, despite the matriarch’s wildly overbearing attempts to control her son. As repugnant as is Gunhild’s monomaniacal clinging, she has been deeply wronged: Her husband’s financial crimes caused her to lose her child to her sister, and her husband’s heart, what there is of it, first belonged Ella, imposing upon Gunhild a loveless marriage. Little wonder she became “hard,” as her husband complains.

For a play so deeply cynical about family and relationships, "Borkman" offers an unexpected glimpse of hope, with the sisters finally joining hands in a gesture of mutual support. Selfish deeds might have frozen these characters’ hearts but, after their last hope is dashed, compassion ignites the flame that will thaw them.